Yesterday, I gathered up a pile of mesquite pods and brought them home to grnd into flour. What an adventure, I thought.

First rough grind was done in a heavy duty blender to reduce the pods to a size I could feed into my mill. I adjusted the mill for a 1st run & gave the mixture a rough grind; everything was fine up to that point. The second milling began with a strong smell, I ignored it, and pushed on. The final milling adjusted to produce a very fine grind, sounded very odd then slowed and stalled in the middle of the grind.

I adjusted, I turned on & off, I ran some wheat through, I tried just about everything. I soon realized that I had really screwed-up. The next 2 hours were spent removing a newly discovered mesquite epoxy from my mill stones. Once I finished, I was left with a spotless and once again functioning mill (and a resolve to PURCHASE my next batch of exotic flour).

I was so mad at myself, I did not even try to use the 3 tablespoons of mesquite flour that I had tbefore the crash. Oh well, live & learn.

phxdog,

You are now the proud recipient of Three Sourdough X-File Stars! Five would have been awarded if you had proceeded to bake bread with those three tablespoons...,

For discovering mesquite epoxy and for having the guts to report a giant screw-up you are awarded Five Sourdough X-File Stars! Interesting things are discovered when you least expect it! Levity aside, I think you found out why you need to dry the newly harvested items to reduce the water content. Sometimes this requires "cracking", "rolling" or "crushing" the items to expose the internal structure otherwise you're apt to discover a new organic form of epoxy...,

Wild-Yeast

OK,

Now I'm all excited to try grinding some mesquite flour again. This time, I think I'll start with a bit more research & follow-up on what you all have suggested. Thanks -

Phxdog (Scott)

Peter Felker

Thanks Scott

I have some recipe and fotos I would like to send to you. I dont see how to do this on this site. Please send me an email. Peter_Felker@hotmail.com

Hi, phxdog,

I did mesquite for the first time this year too. But I did do a little research before I started. For example, I dried my beans and thought I was all set. So I started milling. HA! I didn't get the beans dry enough and so had the gummy mess to clean up too. I had to soak my burrs for hours and then use a hard bristle toothbrush to get out the gum. I learned, though, and persevered, and HAVE used the flour. It is delicious! I put some in biscuits one night and didn't tell the family. They all complimented on the taste and asked what I did. Nice experience. I will definitely continue with my mesquite milling and using the meal.

BTW, mesquite beans make an awesome jelly. Cover the beans with water, bring to a boil. Simmer for about 3 hours then turn off the heat. Let pot sit several hours or overnight and then strain the juice. The cooking beans smell something like spiced honey and the jelly tastes that way too.

Hugs,
Anj

I also burned up two old blenders trying to grind mesquite pods. Besides the drying of the pods what type of home milling machine would you recommend? I can easily gather 4 to 5 bushels just in my back yard and all my neighbors just throw their pods away. Also there are many palo verde trees in the neighborhood including a huge one in my back yard. I know their seeds make a fine legume flour. Forget about diluting some other flour  with mesquite flour or using mesquite flour as some minor additive. I made 100% mesquite flour muffins for my family and they were great. However, two trashed blenders later I'm looking for a solid fix for my home milling . Some input from someone exprienced in this activity would be deeply appreciated. If I get the wrong equipment and foster another mechanical disaster my wifes support could melt away. My culinary  adventure could be relegated to family storytelling about crazy uncle so and so and his exploding blenders. Thanks

Hi, Steve,

I've done some more research on milling mesquite pods.  The mill of choice is a hammer mill, but the cost of one of those is really high.  I read of one area of Arizona where they have get-togethers and mill the beans.  There aren't enough people around here that would do anything with the mesquite beans so that isn't an option for me - the cost of even a small hammer mill is over 3K (at least by the company I had quote me one).  I'd have a hard time harvesting enough beans to make a  return on THAT investment! :-)

I bought an electric impeller impact mill for milling flour (mine is a Blendtec) and that works for the mesquite beans.  Just be sure your mesquite beans are really, really dry.  The fructose in the beans will gum up the mill if not.  You will also have to snap the beans into smaller pieces to be able to feed them into the mill.  The good thing about the impeller impact part is that it cleans itself out as long as the flour isn't too sticky.  I've put my beans through that, and got a lot of long stringy woody part on top and the mesquite flour on the bottom.  The impact mill works on the beans (the hardest part an the part with the high protein) too.

Mills aren't cheap though, so I haven't done this often.  I sure wish I knew a few others in this area that wanted to mill mesquite beans!

Hugs,
Anj

I'm completely confused about what part of the mesquite pod makes the flour.  Can anyone tell me what part(s) need to be milled into flour and what part(s) need to be thrown away?

Thanks,

MJL

What a wonderful thread!

I have often run into mesquite flour at the health store here in Amsterdam, and told myself to find out more about it.

And once again TFL proves its amazing value!

I'm quite sure it's not going to be as fresh and thrilling an experience as what you guys are doing, gathering the pods and milling it fresh and all, but I'm sure going to give the flour a try here. You guys made me curious!

Freerk